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EDUCATION is up to me - MONEY to USMar 21 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Never risk causing social inequality on the one hand, and falling behind the rest of the world on the other.
This category is How to Raise Teenagers. Education is obviously a major consideration, hence the placing of this review here. If we want to be a clever country, with an educated population, we must first instil the desire for education into the people, and then make it financially possible to achieve. Failure to meet both challenges can only have one outcome, that being the education of the relatively wealthy . This sets up a class system where wealth begets wealth as the generations pass, with the resultant social consequences. Failure also precludes a nation from tapping the enormous unfound intelligence among the poorer in society - therefore the nation is the loser, along with the majority of it’s population. This is a most unsatisfactory situation that over time can eventually destroy a nations place in the world. It has often been said that education is an investment in a nations future. This is undoubted, but like all investments it requires at least an initial cost of ready funds. All the goodwill in the world cannot overcome this basic fact - the big ogre money has to be available, and since everyone benefits its only fair and reasonable that the money comes from the taxpayer. Where change is required on a national level, the attitude and persuasiveness of the leader is all important, hence the need to only install leadership into the best possible hands. A good leader will be a lateral thinker with a vision for the future, and not one who is primarily concerned with short term political gain. Lets assume for the sake of the argument a nation has all these things, that is untapped resources among its people, desire for change by the people and the appropriate leadership. And just in case anyone may think this impossible, look at numerous countries in Europe and on the other side of the globe, Australia - all these nations faced up to the test many years ago and are now enjoying the benefits. Equally a great many haven't and there are no doubt better ways to achievement than so far utilised. Purely as an example, I will briefly show how Australia achieved the result desired, since being Australian I comprehend the Australian method better than that of other countries. We decided we had to do many things, not the least being to address the quality of our teachers. This was about 20 years ago. Up till then they had a job for life, couldn’t be sacked, which had led to a blase attitude amongst some. So lots of small schools were closed, teachers sacked and only the best kept. They are now on annual only contracts so that yearly they have to convince their supervisors they are still good enough for another year. Every teacher has to do it, including the Principal. Closing the small schools not only enabled the removal of a lot of underperforming teachers but enabled smaller class sizes. A big advantage here was economies of scale so the overall cost was minimal. Public Schools now have a high reputation and have to compete openly with Private (about 40% of the Schools in Australia). All that got the result of zero illiteracy and of course much more. No matter what level of education, the body concerned, say Universities had to consult with the likely ultimate employers of those students. By doing this education was properly aligned with the requirements - education for education's sake being virtually eliminated. In many industries the likely employers were so pleased with this consultative process as to offer their premises as a campus, or to at least support the program with work experience. Actual on the job work experience is now a feature of most courses. Any Australian Citizen can go to University or a Technical school free and be paid while they are there - its not big pay, $240 per week single plus rent assistance but it makes going possible with a little hardship for anyone anytime. Or they can do part-time or correspondence if they wish. Part time is usually at night to avoid any job conflict. Weekly payments are increased for couples and their children. Once a “student” of any age starts earning over $25,000 they repay one third of the education cost only free of interest, depending on the course, around $4,000 per year of study. Repayment amount is 6% of pay but this can be deferred for up to 5 or 10 years to assist the former student to establish a family home. In this way practically anyone with the desire can afford to enhance their education. Because many to utilise the system, a great many more places have been made available and now we not only have a steadily higher educated population but actually train the youth in particular of a great many other nations. Currently well in excess of 100,000 overseas students are studying in Australia, and this has become a large export industry. Most Australian Universities are now about one third filled with foreign students who pay significantly more than it costs us to educate them. This goes a long way to funding the larger Universities required for Australians. Some nations actually pay the full cost themselves to save building more Universities in their own countries. Japan is a prime example. So yes it can be done, as proven by many countries and those that haven't risk causing social inequality on the one hand, and falling behind the rest of the world on the other.  |
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